PrintBenchmark Survey Participation
Survey participation is by invitation only and is available exclusively to North American dealers aligned with one of the sponsoring manufacturers. Invitations are now routinely extended to Allsteel, Haworth, Herman Miller, Kimball, Knoll, Steelcase and Teknion LLC dealers, as well as ICP Forum peer group members.
The submission period is January through early April. The Benchmark Report is typically completed within 30 days following the survey submission end date. We notify participating dealers by email when the report is ready for use.
Survey Tools
Benchmark Survey Workbook
The data-collection tool for the Financial Benchmark Survey is an Excel workbook which dealers use to enter and submit their responses. You will download the survey workbook from this page to a Windows PC and work with it in a full desktop version of Excel. When you’re ready for submission, click the Submit button provided in the workbook. You will be linked to our upload utility. Simply follow the on-screen prompts until you see the notification that your survey has been accepted.
The survey workbook requires Excel 2013 or later, running on a Windows PC. Do not attempt to use the tool in Excel Online.
Download the .XLSM file and save it to a known location on your PC. When you’re ready to work with it, open it in the full desktop version of Excel and get started.
Here’s a short video to help you get started…
Specific sections:
| Why benchmark? | Start |
|---|---|
| Downloading a blank survey workbook | 3:00 |
| Demographics | 5:30 |
| Product Sales and COGS | 8:40 |
| Non-aligned Product Detail | 12:50 |
| Services Sales and COGS | 15:10 |
| Operating Expenses | 21:40 |
| Balance Sheet | 23:25 |
| Final Review | 26:45 |
| Retrieving last year’s values | 27:40 |
| Getting help | 29:45 |
| Submitting your survey | 30:35 |
Data Mapper
Dealers interested in speeding up future response time should consider using our data mapping tool, an Excel workbook which allows respondents to associate their G/L accounts with the Solomon Coyle Standard Chart of Accounts and then import their data directly into the survey workbook. Dealers who use our data mapper report dramatic reductions in survey completion time and enjoy being able to minimize their manual data entry.
Learn more about the mapping tool.
If your company used our data mapper from past years, your work in the file is still good but you should let us perform a free update for you. Simply email a copy of the previously used mapper to support@solomoncoyle.com. We can usually turn it around for you within 24 hours.
Submission Disqualifiers
Submissions containing insufficient or incomplete data are excluded from the survey results.
Outlier Management
Data points deemed to be outliers from submissions that are otherwise acceptable may be excluded from aggregate indexes but will not impact the dealer’s ability to compare themselves to those indexes.
We Keep Your Submission Safe and Private
Completed surveys are uploaded directly to Solomon Coyle over a secure connection for further QA and analysis. The individual survey results and the survey workbook itself are confidential to the responding dealers and Solomon Coyle unless:
1. A dealer principal informs Solomon Coyle, in writing, that a specific third-party can access those results, or
2. A dealer participates in a specific aligned manufacturer program granting that manufacturer access to Solomon Coyle data as stated in the program requirements.
To ensure data privacy in reporting, a minimum number of responses is required in order for information to be displayed. An aggregate column resulting from a user’s drill-down must be comprised of at least four dealers in order for that column to be displayed.